It's a new era in air traffic control

Air Navigation Service Providers, airport owners and operators, and related stakeholders are facing growing pressure to reduce their operating costs for air traffic services (ATS) services while maintaining safety and efficiency.

The Saab Remote Tower system is an integrated package of subsystems which facilitates the provision of a range of conventional ATS. High definition images and all relevant airport systems are transferred via a data network to an integrated controller working position at the Remote Tower Centre (RTC) that best suits the customer’s business model. A comprehensive suite of image enhancement tools and state of the art video compression provides optimal image resolution whilst minimising bandwidth usage.

Reduced costs

While maintaining safety and efficiency. Remote Tower enables more effective staffing for aerodrome control service and heavily reduces the costs related to building brick and mortar control towers.

Enhanced situational awareness

Even in low visibility conditions. New features such as object tracking and alerting, night vision and image enhancement, are available in this new digital environment to enhance the controller’s situational awareness.

Saab Remote Tower Now Approved

The Swedish Transport Agency has granted operational approval to LFV for the Sundsvall Remote Tower Center to provide ATS for Örnsköldsvik Airport. This is the first approved application of remote tower technology in the world.

Saab Remote Tower technology at Örnsköldsvik is providing real-time data to the RTC in Sundsvall 100 km away for safe and efficient operations.

Regional airport

Solution

The concept

Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) worldwide are trying to reduce the cost of providing ATS without affecting safety or operational availability. Remote Towers will not only help this happen but it will also introduce a never before seen level of flexibility that allows service levels to be enhanced.

This may result in smaller airports remaining open for longer or even keeping some regional airports open that otherwise would have been forced to close due to high costs. At some locations, it has been shown that the Remote Tower Regional Airport Solution can enable ANSPs to increase efficiency by up to 60%.

Multiple Airport Control

To maximize the efficient use of the tower controllers, ANSPs can group airports depending on their traffic pattern throughout the year, week or even day. The traffic demand at certain aerodromes might be such that it enables RTC controllers to operate a maximum of three aerodromes simultaneously.

Thus several movements at multiple aerodromes might be executed in parallel. Airport owners should not be concerned about different traffic types, i.e. commercial, business, VFR, IFR, flying training schools or military. They all benefit equally from the Remote Tower solution.

Key features

To meet future needs as well as present requirements, we recommend a Remote Tower Regional Airport Solution that allows for:

Comprehensive and state of the art Controller Working Positions

One overall solution for role-based situational awareness

Outstanding integration capabilities and complete configurability

Air traffic operation that optimizes the flow and safety for multiple airports

Remote Runway

Solution

With increasing passenger numbers and more strict regulations to fulfill, modern airports need to invest in a long-term solution that will provide maximum safety, security and efficiency. For larger airports, the Saab Remote Tower enables the possibility of reviewing staffing levels or increasing coverage for different remote runways.

Placing the Remote Controlled Airport (RCA) System Tower at a strategic position will increase safety and enhance operational efficiency at the airport. The Remote Tower Module is also easily integrated in the tower or other preferred location of choice. This system is then able to expand as additional runways are added, providing a very flexible, cost-efficient solution to building a new physical tower while adding tracking, night vision and other safety enhancing features.

Key Features

To meet future needs as well as present requirements, we recommend an airport solution that allows for:

Contingency Operations

Solution

Saab’s Remote Tower solution meets the most challenging demands associated with both day-to-day operations and incident management. The system will support any airport in realizing their vision of operational excellence. With the use of Saab Remoete Tower solution as a fallback for medium to large airports, users are able to maintain high capacity traffic throughput in emergency situations or even planned maintenance of the ordinary tower. It is also possible to have a cluster of airports with a Remote Tower Contingency Solution connected to an RTC.

The Saab Remote Tower can be used in the following situations:

Tower maintenance

Tower refurbishment

Crisis situations in a mobile version

Permanent alternative to a traditional tower

Training

KEY FEATURES

To meet future needs as well as present requirements, we recommend a Saab Remote Tower solution that allows for:

Comprehensive and state of the art Controller Working Positions

One overall solution for role-based situational awareness

Outstanding integration capabilities and complete configurability

Cost effective alternative to traditional tower

In Use

Regional Airport

Saab is the world leader in Remote Towers. We have a number of years’ experience in this area and have developed a technical solution for operating several airports from a single Remote Tower Centre.

LFV, Sweden

Saab has delivered the first Remote Tower solution to the Swedish ANSP, LFV. The solution includes an RTC and two connected airports in northern Sweden. The Saab Remote Tower system for LFV is now approved for operation, the first example of a remotely operated airport in the world.

Airservices, Australia

Saab is currently implementing a remote tower solution for non-operational evaluation to Alice Springs with the RTC in Adelaide, some 1500 kilometers from the airport.

Avinor, Norway

Saab has delivered the Remote Tower solution to the Norwegian ANSP, Avinor. The solution includes an RTC and two connected airports in northern Norway. The objective for Avinor is to move into operational use in the near future.

Contingency operations

Swedavia, Sweden.

Contingency trials have been conducted within the SESAR framework at Landvetter Airport, the second largest airport in Sweden. Unplanned events such as systems failure, fire or threat to the tower building can heavily reduce the capacity of the airport or force it to close, which would have severe effects on the air traffic in the region.

The trials showed that investment in Saab Remote Tower technology is a cost-efficient contingency alternative. In addition, it supports a high traffic capacity by providing the controllers with a high quality live video feed of the maneuvering area and aerodrome in the vicinity of the airport.

Saab offers a wide range of solutions designed to support air transportation players in optimizing and securing the different sectors of air transportation covering traffic management, airport support, security and solutions providing net centric capabilities.

For seventy-five years Saab has been developing technology aimed at creating a safer and more confident society. Today, this experience is utilized into a wide range of affordable, net centric security solutions that can radically improve your capabilities within areas such as Critical Infrastructure Protection, Emergency Response, and Guard and Event.